We're all about to die

Josh Bazell's first novel, Beat the Reaper, introduced readers to Pietro Brnwa, a former mob hitman who's doing his best to turn his life around in a New York hospital—but finds it difficult with his patients trying to kill him. Casually violent and consistently hilarious, sequel Wild Thing doesn't make Brnwa's life...

Book Clubs Column by Julie Hale

Home By Marilynne Robinson Robinson’s best-selling follow-up to the Pulitzer Prizewinning Gilead is another beautifully crafted meditation on the nature of family and matters of the spirit. Set in Gilead, Iowa, in the 1950s, Home is centered on the family of Reverend Robert Boughton, who is widowed and slowly dying. After a 20-year absence, his trouble-making son, Jack, has returned to...

Doing penance in a New York hospital

Josh Bazell landed a lucrative publishing deal for his first novel shortly after graduating from medical school. To say that he's better at writing than most writers would be at practicing medicine is to understate Bazell's talent, but it's too good a line to pass up. Beat the Reaper, his highly anticipated debut, may be a bit short on art, but it's long on page-turning action...